Young, Charles Mayne

1777

1856

Born on 10 January 1777, the son of the London surgeon Thomas Young and his wife Anna, Charles Mayne Young was educated at Eton and Merchant Taylors’ School. He worked as a clerk before appearing (as Mr Green) at Liverpool in the title role in “Douglas” 1798. He was also seen at Manchester and Edinburgh, where in 1802 he became friends with Sir Walter Scott. In 1807 at the Haymarket he made his London debut as Hamlet (G0867) on 22 June and was subsequently seen there as Hotspur in “Henry IV part 1”, Petruchio in “The Taming of the Shrew”, Rolla in “Pizarro” and other major roles. The following year he acted with John Philip Kemble, his model and mentor, at Covent Garden, where he was seen as Macbeth, Prospero in “The Tempest”, Joseph Surface in “The School for Scandal”, Richard III, Cassius in “Julius Caesar” (G0866), Othello and Iago, King John (G0871) and King Lear, among other chiefly Shakespearean roles. When Kemble reduced the number of his own appearances, Young became to many followers England’s leading tragedian. Leigh Hunt found Young’s Cassius most promising. On 5 April 1812 he wrote, ‘It is full of fire, and yet marked with the nicest discrimination – a rare combination, in which this actor promises to excel all his contemporaries … [I]f Mr. Young proceed[s] in this manner to study his part ambitiously, and to read his part with that searching and patient eye which will alone enable us to catch all the pith and scope of his eloquence … he will soon oust Mr. Kemble from the throne which his grave cant has usurped …’ On the other hand, when William Hazlitt saw Young play Prospero at Covent Garden on 23 July 1815 he found it ‘indescribably bad. It was grave without solemnity, stately without dignity, pompous without being impressive … Mr. Young did not personate Prospero, but a pedagogue teaching his scholars how to recite the part, and not teaching them well.’ In 1822 Young was with Edmund Kean at Drury Lane, making his debut there as Hamlet on 17 October and during the season sharing leads with him. The following season found Young back at Drury Lane. He retired on 31 January 1832 after playing Hamlet, with Macready as the Ghost. Young died on 28 June 1856 at Brighton. Considering his rivals – Kemble, Kean, and Macready – Charles Mayne Young held his own well enough, but his declamatory style was too like Kemble’s for audiences exposed to the excitement Kean generated. (DNB; Gamini Salgado, ed. “Eyewitnesses of Shakespeare”, 1975) [EAL]